I may have a number of shooting faults but there's little doubt in my mind the reason for my greatest frustration of not being able to shoot more accurately is anticipating recoil. Lately, the first shot of the day and after a little rest in between shots is a bullseye. Then they begin to drift low and to the left. Sometimes I'm even able to get 5 consecutive shots in the 10 ring for some unknown reason before the wheels fall off. So, I must be capable of shooting well, just not consistently. What to do? I already dry fire a lot and it seems to help but only temporarily. It was suggested earlier to make up dummy rounds and mix them with my ammo. I plan to do that but I already know it will tell me what I already know, I flinch sometimes. What I really would like to hear are suggestions on how to eliminate anticipation if that's possible.

a strong "mental program" like the one Lanny Bassham teaches is important to bring that consistent high performance. Imprinting the good shots is needed--one of the tools for that is recording the good parts of your performance in a performance log/journal.

You know that you are able to perform well--you need to remind your subconscious that you do that regularly. Since you are to the stage that you can hit several 10s on demand, that means the skill is there.

jmdavis wrote:Is this with the .22 as well as the CF and .45 or only with the CF and .45?

I started with the .22 but didn't experience any jerking or anticipation. At least I don't recall doing it. Lately I've been concentrating on .45 and this is where I began to notice the problem. I've shot a little CF along with the .45 and noticed that I've picked up the pad habit with that too. I did load a couple of dummy rounds and will give that a try tomorrow.

My mentor told me about his first 2700. He was shooting down in Florida with a Navy Base team in the early 1960's, and until that very match had exclusively shot the .22. The coach handed him a 45 and said shoot this. He said that he might have it the paper, but he knows that he hit the ground in front of the target.

The funny thing was that one of the civilians, who was a good CF and 45 shooter, actually left the match after the .22 900 because he thought that he would lose to him.

But, he also told me that the way to work on avoiding that sort of thing was to focus on smooth and steady trigger control with dryfire (often against a blank wall). Then there is the dotter or pencil in the barrel dryfire method.

The goofy part of this mind thing is that I'll often times throw a bullseye when I fire my first shot of the day and after a break then fall back into the anticipation mode. What surprises me even more are the string of consecutive tight groups where I'm aiming. I then ask myself what's going on followed by the usual chaos.

Rob - I'll take a look at the Lenny Bassham's products. I spent a lot of time with the Michael Murphy line for golf and tennis years ago. It never took hold with me.

Rob Kovach wrote:a strong "mental program" like the one Lanny Bassham teaches is important to bring that consistent high performance. Imprinting the good shots is needed--one of the tools for that is recording the good parts of your performance in a performance log/journal.

You know that you are able to perform well--you need to remind your subconscious that you do that regularly. Since you are to the stage that you can hit several 10s on demand, that means the skill is there.

It's hard to explain...Lanny's book (or audio book) sort of tells you what you should be thinking about when you are writing what you are supposed to write...that's more important than the layout of the pages themselves. He even says that you can do this in any notebook--but you really need to do it in writing.

Rob, I'm an anal retentive engineer who quite enjoys OCD. Amazed the rest of the world can't get their OCD in order. What worked for me is to put it in perspective. You understand catching a baseball has significantly more energy than even hard ball ammo. Do the mass x velocity and then it starts to make sense. Recoil doesn't hurt and anticipation is not part of our process that drives bullets into the center. So I attack it by concentrating on the act rather than the results. My goal is SEE exactly where the dot was as recoil starts. Watch the target intently to see exactly where the red shadow was as the hammer fell. don't try to make it fall as the dot crosses the X. Your goal should be to capture the poistion just as the muzzle flash back lights the dot. My iron sight plan is similar. Assume the alignment is NOT perfect. My job is to capture the alignment and make the call on each shot. I should know even if it is a 10, I should be able to call a 3:00 sight alignment. Another tool, get a video camera mounted to your box so it can record your face as you shoot. Mine made me believe that some of the time I was closing my eyes as the shot broke. All clues that your triggering was such that you knew when the exact moment the hammer was going to initiate combustions. Teach yourself to enjoy the being able to see the sights all the way through recoil. Glasses with side shields to block the percussive puff helps. Double plug & Muff.

OK, here's another way to look at it or think about it. Within the process of delivering a good shot there is a bell curve of performance (trigger pull, completion of the shot, whatever) related to holding the gun (sight alignment) and operating the trigger (firing the shot).

One end of the curve could be considered "anticipation" which generally means you blink, pull the trigger too quickly, or whatever; disturbing the sight alignment which results in a "flinch", "jerk" or whatever. You might be able to see the sights, but the pressure and process is so uneven and unpredictable that the sight alignment is disturbed more than needed. And maybe so quick that you can't even call the shot properly.

On the other end could be considered "hesitation" which generally results in some other kind of wild shot when you go past the best wobble you are capable of (sight alignment and sight picture) and rather than aborting the shot, you let it go, not wanting to waste all that effort you've already invested in the shot. Sometimes its a jerk, sometimes its a surprise, but its always too late although you can probably see enough to call the shot but not generally a 10.

Think about being in the middle of that bell curve. The trigger press should be done smoothly and quickly enough so we can complete the shot before the wobble area becomes too large. (Hopefully it will trip the sear during the smallest part of the wobble). But not so quickly or with such effort as to induce a jerk or uncontrolled process of operating the trigger, pushing the gun from side to side, etc. (trigger control). With each gun and trigger weight, these can be assisted or hindered by how hard and consistently the gun in gripped.

Therefore we need to know what our wobble process looks like (visual feedback) and have enough control (training) to complete the trigger process smoothly within the optimum time with a consistently acceptable grip pressure. And we need the courage abort the shot when any of those are not in sync.